Hassler Whitney
Born: 23 March 1907 in New York, USA
Died: 10 May 1989 in Mount Dents Blanches, Switzerland
Hassler Whitney attended Yale University where he received his first degree in 1928, then continued to undertake mathematical research at the University of Harvard from where his doctorate was awarded in 1932. His doctorate was awarded for a dissertation The Coloring of Graphs written under Birkhoff's supervision.
He continued to work at Harvard, being an instructor in mathematics from 1930 until 1935, although the years 1931-33 were spent as a National Research Council Research Fellow. From 1935 he was promoted to assistant professor, then from 1940 associate professor. Harvard made him a full professor in 1946 and he held this professorship until he accepted an offer from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton of a chair in 1952.
Whitney's main work was in topology, particularly in the theory of manifolds. Continuing work started by Veblen and Henry Whitehead, Whitney produced fundamental work in differential topology in 1935.
Whitney also wrote on graph theory, in particular the colouring of graphs and chromatic polynomials. Other work on algebraic varieties and integration theory was important.
Outside mathematical research Whitney contributed in many ways to his subject. He was chairman of the National Science Foundation mathematics panel from 1953 until 1956. He was editor of the American Journal of Mathematics from 1944 to 1949, then editor of Mathematical Reviews from 1949 until 1954.
Ulam writing about Whitney said:-
He was friendly, but rather taciturn - psychologically of a type one encounters in this
country more frequently than in central Europe - with wry humour, shyness but self-assurance, a probity which shines through, and a certain genius for persistent and deep follow-through in mathematics.
Princeton was to remain Whitney's base from 1952 until he retired in 1977. The year before he retired he was awarded the National Medal of Science. Then in 1983 he received the Wolf Prize and, two years later, the Steele Prize.